After having typically appeared in the hallowed pages of Baseball Think Factory, Dan Szymborski’s ZiPS projections have now been released at FanGraphs for half a decade. The exercise continues this offseason. Below are the projections for the Chicago Cubs. Szymborski can be found at ESPN and on Twitter at @DSzymborski.

Batters
Dan Szymborski’s computer projects only three Cubs — Kris Bryant (670 PA, 5.8 zWAR), Anthony Rizzo (658, 4.9), and Addison Russell (508, 3.0) — to produce three wins or more in 2018, yet all eight of the positions on the depth-chart image below are forecast to reach that mark (within a rounding error, at least).

The cause of that discrepancy is as obvious as the deep, unabating terror in every mortal heart: the Cubs use platoons often and to good effect. Ben Zobrist (478, 1.9), for example, lacks a set role but is likely to complement Javier Baez (507, 1.7) and Jason Heyward (538, 2.3) at second base and right field, respectively. Ian Happ (545, 2.2), meanwhile, will probably share center and left fields with Albert Almora (437, 1.2) and Kyle Schwarber (511, 1.2).

As for weaknesses, no obvious one exists in the starting lineup as it’s presently constructed. That said, neither Almora nor Schwarber seem to be great candidates for a full-time role on a championship club — or, not according to ZiPS, at least. Were Happ to suffer an injury or fail to compensate for his strikeout rates with sufficient power on contact, then the team might be compelled to look for help elsewhere.

Pitchers
Towards the end of January, Craig Edwards contended that the Cubs would need to add Yu Darvish in order to secure their designation as one of the league’s “super teams.” The grounds for his argument: while Chicago’s starting five were strong enough as a group, that wasn’t sufficient. Most playoff teams, Edwards notes, require eight useful starters in a given season.

In the bullpen, the club has assembled an incredibly balanced unit. Brandon Morrow (51.2 IP, 72 ERA-, 1.1 zWAR) is the closer, but Carl Edwards Jr. (60.0, 72, 1.2) and Justin Wilson (56.0, 70, 1.2) are also forecast to record adjusted ERAs about 30% lower than league average. Steve Cishek (51.1, 76, 0.9) and Pedro Strop (54.0, 76, 1.0) nearly rival that mark, as well.

Bench/Prospects
Because the Cubs are likely once again to employ job shares with some frequency, the club will roster less in the way of strict “bench players.” Tommy La Stella (286 PA, 0.3 zWAR) is probably the closest thing to a real reserve type. Victor Caratini (443, 1.2), meanwhile, earns the tops wins projection from ZiPS of all those players omitted from the depth-chart image below.

Among the possible internal means to addressing Chicago’s lack of rotation depth is right-hander Alec Mills (88.7 IP, 1.3 zWAR). As noted in Eric Longenhagen’s audit of the Cubs system, Mills doesn’t possess particularly impressive arm speed but does a number of other things well. He receives the top projection among those starters omitted from the depth chart below.

Depth Chart
Below is a rough depth chart for the present incarnation of the Cubs, with rounded projected WAR totals for each player. For caveats regarding WAR values see disclaimer at bottom of post. Click to enlarge image.

Disclaimer: ZiPS projections are computer-based projections of performance. Performances have not been allocated to predicted playing time in the majors — many of the players listed above are unlikely to play in the majors at all in 2017. ZiPS is projecting equivalent production — a .240 ZiPS projection may end up being .280 in AAA or .300 in AA, for example. Whether or not a player will play is one of many non-statistical factors one has to take into account when predicting the future.

Players are listed with their most recent teams unless Dan has made a mistake. This is very possible as a lot of minor-league signings are generally unreported in the offseason.

ZiPS is projecting based on the AL having a 4.24 ERA and the NL having a 4.18 ERA.

Players that are expected to be out due to injury are still projected. More information is always better than less information and a computer isn’t what should be projecting the injury status of, for example, a pitcher with Tommy John surgery.

Regarding ERA+ vs. ERA- (and FIP+ vs. FIP-) and the differences therein: as Patriot notes here, they are not simply mirror images of each other. Writes Patriot: “ERA+ does not tell you that a pitcher’s ERA was X% less or more than the league’s ERA. It tells you that the league’s ERA was X% less or more than the pitcher’s ERA.”

Both hitters and pitchers are ranked by projected zWAR — which is to say, WAR values as calculated by Dan Szymborski, whose surname is spelled with a z. WAR values might differ slightly from those which appear in full release of ZiPS. Finally, Szymborski will advise anyone against — and might karate chop anyone guilty of — merely adding up WAR totals on depth chart to produce projected team WAR.

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Is Heyward irretrievably broken at this point? I don’t think that’s a ridiculous claim after two consecutive down years at the plate. If you would have told me after his rookie year that he’d be a defense-first outfielder projected for a 92 wRC+ in his late 20’s, I would have called you crazy.

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LHPSU

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Surely you understand the feeling, Francoeur.

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dtpollitt

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Something I noticed the other day: Heyward’s opt-out was set to coincide perfectly with Bryce Harper’s free agency.

It’s not too hard to imagine what the Cubs were thinking. Heyward was supposed to put up a wRC+ of about 120 with elite defense in right field, and opt out. Then the Cubs could pursue Harper for an even larger contract, but with another opt-out after Year 3. The Cubs would never have to pay the back half of any of these massive, bloated contracts, and get peak production from superstars in free agency.

This is one of those “genius if it works” plans that has backfired spectacularly. I know Heyward has a great work ethic, but it doesn’t look good from here.

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output gap

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Jason Heyward’s no trade clause drops from full to 12 teams only if he opts into his deal. It was also front loaded, so he will be traded if the Cubs intend on signing Harper.

Given that Heyward will be 29 after this season and the price of a win is >$9 million, the contract is not nearly debilitating for the franchise.

TL:DR, Heyward will be traded for Melancon next November when they both opt in.

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sadtrombone

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The price of a win is whatever you can get your free agents to take for the expected utility (projected WAR) you’re going to get out of him, not how much WAR you actually received. Let’s take the example we are talking about to demonstrate why the whole $9 million/win number is a fundamental misreading of Matt Swartz’s work:

Using the methodology that Matt Swartz does, here is how we would calculate the “price of a win” if Jason Heyward was the only free agent:

-He signs an 8 year, $184 million contract
-He has put up 2.4 wins in the last two years
-He is projected for 2.3 zWAR next year, and since his defense is likely to decline as he enters his 30s, that will likely be the high-water mark. Let’s put him down for an average of 2.1 WAR for the next 6 years.
-With 15 WAR, we can now conclude that in our fictional free agency scenario, the cost of a win is $12.667 million per win, adjusted by whatever inflation indicator you want to use.

But do we really think Cubs’ expected utility for Jason Heyward was a bunch of years just above 2 WAR? Of course not. What this example shows is that the $9 million/WAR number covers the efficiency of buying wins on the free agent market, and not necessarily the expected utility.

All this is to say, that contract is awful, and it’s more likely they’d swap him for a Johnny Cueto who doesn’t bounce back than Melancon.

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output gap

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BR has Heyward worth 3.8 WAR over the last two years versus FG with 2.4. The difference is basically how many runs he’s preventing on defense. Let’s split the difference and call it 3.1, or 1.6 per season.

$106 million over 5 years is the remaining deal after this year is complete. Using the Schwartz 12.667M figure you cited, he’ll be “required” to produce ~8.5 WAR to “justify” the contract (conveniently 1.7 WAR per season). It’s a bad deal. It didn’t work out in Dollar per WAR terms. It’s also only modestly underwater due to changes in the market place. Could 29 year old Heyward after a 92 wRC+ / 2.3 WAR season get $106M/5? No. No one would take the 5 year risk. But if he was going to be priced for a 5 year contract, it would look something like $80/5 with huge error bars.

The loss on this contract has already been booked, in the first 2-3 years of the deal. He has provided 3 WAR at cost of $49.8 Million. That’s atrocious.

If he’s a 90 wRC+ RF with +14 DEF as ZiPS suggests, the remaining deal is not underwater by nearly as much as you are saying.

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sadtrombone

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I think you missed the point of my prior post. The point was not that Heyward’s contract is underwater, which everyone agrees it is. The point is that the reasoning I’m using here is exactly where that $/win figure you are citing is coming from. I was trying to demonstrate how incorrect it was, and that we use Swartz’s $/win number in completely the wrong way.

To put it another way, $9 million/win does not show how teams value wins. It shows you how efficient spending on free agency is. When it goes up, it means teams are getting less results for their money, not that the valuation changed.

My specific point is that it is unlikely that that a position player would get $80m/5years for an expected utility of 2 wins for the next 5 years. (This, incidentally, is why Mike Moustakas remains unsigned)

If you want to look at the expected cost of a win, take a prospective projection (like zips) for the life of the contract and figure out how much players are signing for. It will be way closer to capturing the expected utility than whether someone opened up the package and found lemons instead of lemonade.

EDIT: The key distinction here is between expected utility and revealed choice. In marketplaces where you are fairly certain you will get what you pay for, the practical difference doesn’t matter so much. In marketplaces like this one, where your expectations of what you’ll get differ from what you actually receive, it is very important to distinguish them.
See here: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.9.5406&rep=rep1&type=pdf

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Baron Samedi

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